Winston cigarettes t shirt6/21/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() That era still carries weight: When a promoter ran late model races at North Wilkesboro last year, the advertisements and signage used the old Winston Cup era font and color scheme. Winston’s title sponsorship of NASCAR ended in 2003, but the words “Winston Cup” are now shorthand for the golden age of stock car racing-a time that began with Richard Petty and ended not long after the death of Dale Earnhardt. The word “Winston” also appeared on the wall every 100 yards or so. ![]() So to convey the appearance of speed, RJR asked tracks to paint their single-colored walls with red and white stripes, which would whiz past in the background. The long lenses on cameras made the cars look slow. Television didn’t truly capture the speed of race cars that could hit 190 miles per hour at Talladega and Daytona. So, they helped bring eight racetracks back from the brink of bankruptcy, and took steps to make the sport more exciting to watch on TV: At the time, NASCAR and its teams were financially struggling, and RJR realized that it’d be throwing its money away unless it made stock car racing more popular. So to get around the law, RJR decided to put tons of money into sponsoring a sport that was, at that time, occasionally televised. In short, RJR and other tobacco companies were banned from directly advertising on TV in 1970, but still had tens of millions in marketing dollars to spend. You can read it in full by tapping on the button below: I did a bunch of research and talked with Colbert, and the result is a story called “ Tobacco Roar ,” which is out now. ![]()
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